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depending on how fast your connection is a linux distro can take quite a while to download nowdays. You might want to look in your local newsagent/bookstore for Linux magazines - which often have a distro on the cover.

Between 30 and 50 pounds is a fair price to pay for a large manual, properly pressed CDs, a box, additionanal proprietary software, a month of quality email support and saved time with downloading. Its much more than you get with a Microsoft OS nowadays anyway

Remember that one copy can also be installed (minus proprietary software: usually no 'system-critical' apps on most distros) on as many machines as you want.

Also, developers don't come free: a large majority of the real hacking done on the most popular programs (Apache, Perl, KDE) is actually done by paid developers who work for companies such as Red Hat and Mandrake. A small contribution via a purchase of one boxed copy of a distro is a nice gesture to make, although this shouldn't be your only motive for buying a box copy, as these are profit making organisations after all

I'm not for one minute saying that you should all start buying your distros, download them if possible, but saying they are a rip-off is a bit harsh.